When you work in a nascent industry like the UAV industry, it’s interesting to watch it organically grow and develop. Historically, it’s been frustrating because the United States has lagged behind, thankfully recent changes have been made that create a more favorable environment for commercial UAV venture. While we lagged behind Europe pushed ahead, but now it seems like tide could once again be shifting.
Europe was an early-rising bright star in the drone industry and it continues to shine. The continent now needs to move quickly to stay ahead of the game, but an EU-wide regulation framework for drones, it would seem, is still years away.
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De Vos laid out the rationale for a pan-EU regulation: “Under the current regulatory framework, drones under 150kg are governed by the individual EU Member States. But we don’t want you to have to deal with 28 national rules. Even if you want to work in a small niche market, you may want to work on a European scale. If you want to film in London, you might also want to do it in Berlin, or Paris or Brussels.”
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While the Parliament and Council have been mulling over questions of European competence, the EU-funded Single European Sky ATM Research Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU) has been working on a new air traffic management concept for commercially operated drones. The system, called U- Space, is aimed at enabling complex drone operations with a high degree of automation in all types of environments, particularly in the urban context.
